


Tough Luck Friend

by Neffectual



Series: 104 Reasons to Stay Alive [16]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Disabled Character, Disability, Female Hange Zoë, Happy Ending, M/M, Physical Disability, Post-Canon, Wheelchairs, adapting to disability, orisor inspired
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 12:52:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2110599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Hanji is injured shortly after taking command, it becomes harder and harder for Levi to pretend he isn't desperately afraid of losing the two people who mean the most to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tough Luck Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Being disabled is hard. Harder than I'd ever suspected when I was able-bodied. I'd love to see more canon disabled characters in AoT, but I know it's more realistic that those who come bck from war injured simply die from complications. So this was born.
> 
> Title and quotation from Keaton Henson's 'About Sophie'.

_Cause I'm a tough shit friend_  
 _And I'll reckon she'll stay with me ‘til the end_  
 _And it means more than I pretend._

_And I know I'm awful, I can't even cry_  
 _It's about time I told her and looked in her eyes_  
 _You're my best friend; I'll love you ‘til one of us dies._

It’s not long after Erwin’s retirement that Hanji takes a wound to her back; deep and raw, from the blade of a poorly-trained recruit. Levi swear and curses at the kid, barely fourteen and shaking in his poorly-fitted boots, but he doesn’t stay for long, simply stares at Armin and his gaze goes icy.  
“You’re in command now, Arlert.” he says, and sweeps out after the stretcher carrying his oldest friend, clenching his fists to stop his hands from shaking. As commander, or former commander, Hanji is afforded the best medical care that she can get, but it’s Levi who sits up, washing the pus out of her wound, watching skin and flesh slowly knit back together, day after day. Erwin is held up in red tape in the capital, but Levi knows, if he’s honest, that it’s better like this, just the two of them. She’s delirious, whispers of love and kisses, or silent nights in the bunks, of large hands on her slim hips, and Levi responds, too, telling her stories; the time Erwin dislocated his shoulder, the time Kirschtein walked in on them in the supply cupboard, and they had to pretend they were mopping really vigorously, the time Petra had said something indiscreet in front of Nile and the man had blushed from collar to forehead. She knows these, and he knows her stories, too, but there is comfort in the familiar, comfort in the way they know each other, and it passes the time in which Hanji’s fever-dream refuses to break.

When the vicious wound finally heals into an angry looking scar, Hanji leans over and kisses his check, ruffling dirty, sweat-soaked hair.  
“I don’t think I can walk.” she says, quietly, like she's telling him a secret. Her voice is trembling, and he grips her hand, “I don’t think I’m going to walk again.”  
He doesn’t question her, doesn’t dare to disrespect her knowledge of anatomy and medical science, or what her own body is feeling, simply kisses her forehead and mutters something about needing a shower. He doesn’t know how long he stays under the spray, shaking, hands beating at the tiles and choked out screams hidden behind clenched teeth, but the water is icy, and he deserves nothing more. He has been at her side for three months, feeding her, cleaning her, changing her bed linens and making her laugh, and now he realises he did not do the one thing he should have done – protect her from the ignorant child who injured her. He should have cut the man down where he stood, should have crippled him, too, should have, should have....  
He passes Arlert in the corridor, and nods at him, noting the bolo tie. It doesn’t suit him, the man doesn’t have enough of a neck for it, but better him than Levi, better him than someone who let his best friend, his only living friend, become a bedridden cripple. When he returns to his own quarters, dusty from misuse, he crawls wearily under the covers, determined to sleep for a thousand years, so that when he wakes up, this will never have happened.

When Erwin is back from the capital, he goes straight to Hanji’s bedside. It’s a surprise to see her sitting up, chirping instructions at Moblit, who is crawling around in a pile of machinery.  
“Where’s Levi?” she asks him, and Erwin’s brow furrows.  
“I thought he would be here.” he says, confused. Why would Levi leave Hanji to heal alone?  
“He was. He... didn’t like the idea that I might not walk again.” she admits, voice low, and Erwin kneels at her bedside to press his cheek to her hair.  
“I’m sorry. I should have been there, if I hadn’t – ”  
“You old fool.” Hanji says, her voice warm with affection, “You think that little prince of yours would survive with you gone?”  
“I rather suspect he might miss you more.” Erwin admits, with a wry laugh, “I’m just comic relief half of the time.”  
“Just because you look at him like he’s the whole world, and he doesn’t often return the favour?” Hanji says, shrewd as usual, and Erwin nods, “You don’t see it, because he can’t make that face for the whole world to see. But if we’re talking, and you walk into the room, he watches you. If you’re nearby, he can’t keep his eyes off you. He doesn’t love you in public; he can’t risk that weakness. But I’m amazed you don’t see it.”  
Erwin shrugs, something which he’s still getting used to with one arm, and doesn’t look her in the eye.  
“You really still think he’s got a thing for me?” she asks, and Erwin curses her perception.  
“I should go and see him.” he says, rising, and she grabs his good shoulder, hard.  
“You go and tell him I don’t blame him, and there is nothing more ridiculous than him blaming himself, thank you.” With that, his audience with her over, she turns back to Moblit, chirruping and laughing as she directs him, like she’d never lost her temper for a second. Erwin gives in and leaves her room, searching for the courage to confront Levi.

He doesn’t find it.

Two months down the line and Hanji’s a familiar sight in the garrison corridors, speeding along with the chair she made for herself, which rolls along like a carriage, on wheels. Moblit built the foundations, and she’s been tinkering with it ever since. Sometimes she moves herself, using the grips installed on the wheels, but more often than not, Levi is behind her, pushing her along, keeping an eye out for recruits whose feet he can run over. Hanji laughs at the game, although she makes sure to scold Levi afterwards, and laugh again as he doesn’t look the slightest bit repentant. When it’s time to move garrisons, she has to travel by carriage, rather than on horseback, because although she can manage a few steps, he legs are weak and sore to use, and riding is out of the question.  
If it surprises the recruits to see how tender Levi is with his oldest friend, they don’t mention it, as she wheels herself out into the courtyard, and he walks beside her, Erwin four or five paces behind. They salute, but he doesn’t have eyes for them, the tall blond watching as his lover whispers into Hanji’s ear, making her giggle and blush, before sweeping her up in his arms and lifting into the carriage, helping her get seated before kissing her nose and stepping down, looking at Erwin for the first time.  
“We need to load her chair carefully.” he says, as he shuts the door, and Erwin wishes, painfully, fiercely, that he could be that affectionate with Levi in public, that he would get anything but a swift rebuttal, if not a knee to the groin. He just nods and gestures to Ackerman and Jaeger, who carefully lift Hanji’s strange contraption onto a cart and secure it with straps.  
“Do you want to ride with her?” Erwin asks, quietly, whilst they’re busy.  
The look Levi gives him could scorch stone.  
“I’ll take my proper position, thank you.”

Six months later, Commander Arlert is wounded in battle, and brought home barely moving, but still alive, pulse strong, and Erwin finds Levi shaking in the showers, and wraps him up in a strong arm until he can speak again.  
“You’re all going to die.” Levi says, plainly, and it would seem like he doesn’t care if not for the hungry desperation in his eyes, “You’re all going to die and leave me alone forever.”  
Erwin curses himself for not talking about this sooner.  
“You really want to do this here?” he asks, and bites his tongue. Levi shakes his head, “My room, then?”  
Levi nods, and Erwin smiles ruefully.  
“Sorry I can’t carry you anymore.” he says, and ruffles damp black strands of hair. Levi makes an annoyed sound, a bit like a damp cat.  
“Try it in public and you’d be missing the other arm, too.” he hisses, and Erwin’s smile breaks into a grin. He didn’t realise how much he had missed his lover’s scathing tongue until it was once more directed at him. The walk to his room is quiet, and Erwin realises, with a start, that Levi has not seen these rooms before, has never been in them. The door closes behind them, and Levi flings himself at Erwin, nearly knocking the other man backwards.  
“I let her get hurt, I let you get hurt, I should have been there, I should have – ”  
Erwin cuts him off with a kiss. Levi pushes away to throw himself on the bed, face a mask of pain.  
“Neither of us blame you – ”  
“You should.”  
Erwin rolls his eyes a little at his lover’s dramatics, but sighs before he sits down next to the small body on the bed.  
“We’re soldiers. We all get hurt, we know what the odds are. You know that.”  
“I don’t want to.” Levi says, like a petulant child, “I don’t want to know that, I want you both to stick around for as long as I do. I don’t want to have to live without either of you. I can’t... I can’t do that again. I won’t.”  
“I love you.” Erwin says, for the first time, and Levi turns to gape at him, “And I should have said that a lot sooner.”  
Levi throws a pillow at him. Erwin thinks he probably deserves it.

Hanji smacks Levi round the head when she hears what he was thinking, then drafts him into helping her and Moblit build a chair like hers for Arlert who, miraculously, is going to live, although he has no feeling from the neck down. It hurts Erwin’s heart to see his lover curled up at Hanji’s feet, watching her explain something complex, and when he looks up to smile at Erwin, he has to duck his head away, returning to the piece of machinery he’s working on. Hanji thinks she’s worked out a gas propellant for the chair, but Arlert is refusing to be the first test subject – or victim, as he keeps saying, with a glint in his eyes – so Hanji will have to test it on herself first. When she finds a method that works, she grabs Levi and kisses his cheek, then does the same to Moblit.  
“Come on, Erwin.” Levi calls, smiling, “Come get your kiss.”  
Erwin stoops and lets Hanji kiss his cheek, feeling her hand in his hair.  
“I am so lucky to have my boys.” she says, quietly, and beams at them.

The three of them wander the halls, terrorising the recruits and the other officers alike, Hanji’s chair jingling with bells Levi’s placed in secret hiding places, so she can stop sneaking up on him when he’s training rookies, because jumping three feet in the air when she gooses him doesn’t exactly engender respect. Erwin’s got something mechanical instead of an arm now, and likes to use the magnetism in it to steal all the cutlery just before dinner, like the brat Levi has always suspected he is. As for Armin Arlert – well, he’s still the commander, working body or not, because his biggest strength has always been his brain, and his chair zooms around near-silently, letting him shout ‘boo’ at Jaeger, which seems to be his favourite hobby. They can be found at the head table, Hanji waving Arlert’s limp arm around to make her point, and laughing as he glares at her, Erwin’s mechanical arm ‘getting stuck’ with its middle finger raised, and Levi, sat in the centre of it all, with the green bolo tie around his neck now, with his head in his hands.  
“I have no idea why I haven’t had you all put away somewhere.” he says, dryly, through his fingers, trying not to watch as Arlert makes faces at Hanji in response to the bread she just shoved down his shirt, which Erwin is trying to fish out.  
“Because you love us.” Hanji says, beaming, and Erwin leans down to kiss the top of his head. Arlert just smiles and raises his eyebrows in a shrug.  
“I’d have to.” Levi says, and looks at the little family he’s crafted for himself. All in all, he thinks, they haven’t done that badly for a band of misfits.


End file.
